housing

Speculation Swirls Around Kathleen Wynne

Premier Kathleen Wynne is slapping a 15 per cent “non-resident speculation” tax on foreign investors to help cool down southern Ontario’s scorching real estate market, the Star has learned.

March 29, 2017

Wynne will join Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Housing Minister Chris Ballard on Thursday against a backdrop of condo towers in booming Liberty Village to launch a massive plan to improve housing affordability.

A key plank in that would be the 15 per cent surcharge on offshore speculators, who are estimated to make up just 5 per cent of the current market.

Modelled on British Columbia’s “foreign buyers’ tax” in Vancouver, the levy would apply to home purchasers in the so-called Greater Golden Horseshoe who are not citizens or permanent residents.

November 3, 2016

It would affect sales in and around the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Niagara, Kitchener-Waterloo, and encompass everywhere north to Barrie and Orillia and east to Peterborough. (Source: Toronto Star)

Meanwhile, Speculation about whether Premier Kathleen Wynne can continue to lead the governing Liberals is at a f‎ever pitch.

Party stalwarts are hoping next week’s balanced ‎budget from Finance Minister Charles Sousa will tip the scal

September 9, 2016

es for Wynne’s teetering political fortunes.

But with public and private polling showing the Liberals languishing in third place well behind the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats — even after Wynne’s 25 per cent cut in residential electricity rates — there is mounting uncertainty she will remain at the helm.

The Ontario Liberal Party’s chief fundraiser, Zak Bailey, has quietly resigned just seven months into a job made even more challenging by campaign finance reforms triggered by a Star series last year.

“You’d have to ask the party what their plans are,” Bailey said Monday, declining further comment. (Source: Toronto Star)

Council shifts $50M anti-poverty plan into an affordable housing initiative

City council approved Mayor Fred Eisenberger’s motion almost a year ago to set aside $30 million for a decade of unspecified measures to combat poverty and $20 million to fix or grow Hamilton’s social housing stock.

The money will come from future hydro utility dividends as well as Hamilton’s Future Fund.

City health and social services staff consulted local advocacy groups and experts on how best to spend the cash and presented a wide-ranging set of proposals to councillors Wednesday, including “wraparound” support for poverty-stricken single parents, “portable” rents for those seeking affordable housing and special funding for the urban aboriginal community.

November 25, 2009

Mayor Fred Eisenberger, who initially pitched reserving $30 million for a menu of poverty-fighting measures, said he understands councillors want to see a “cleaner, simpler” direction on how to spend the “historic” investment over a decade.

He seconded Collins’ motion, calling the focused housing approach a “fantastic step forward for this community.”

Coun. Matthew Green said he would only support the radical shift in strategy if the original unique plan to allocate $10 million for indigenous-led poverty-fighting initiatives was maintained in some way. “This is a top priority for me,” he said. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Premier Kathleen Wynne has said her government is working on a “comprehensive set of plans,” to deal with rising home prices in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), as well as rising rental rates.

Sousa said he’d like to include those plans in the spring budget.

There is a “suite of options” available to Ontario, but the province must be careful to avoid “unintended consequences” from those measures, he said.

Sousa also spoke about pressures on both the supply and demand side of the GTHA housing market.

“Demand is high for a number of factors,” he said. “Could be speculators, could be people from outside the country, it could very well be the many who are now moving into Ontario creating that demand.”

“The degree of supply is in question and how to expedite that is also something we’re trying to address,” he added.

The housing package in the budget will concern the red-hot housing market in the GTHA, while taking into account different circumstances in the rest of the province, Sousa said. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Warning bells are being sounded in some quarters about an overheated housing market that is trending toward fewer listings, higher prices and yet increased sales, at least locally.

July 13, 2016

But the president of the Realtors Association of Hamilton and Burlington suggests the situation is neither worrisome nor difficult to understand.

“It’s Economics 101,” said Lou Piriano. “There is less supply, and more and constant demand.”

A report released Wednesday by the Canadian Real Estate Association describes a “severe” shortage of homes available for sale “particularly in and around Toronto and in parts of B.C.”

The report said “the imbalance between limited housing supply and robust demand in Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe region is without precedent.”

And an economist was quoted in the Toronto Star saying that the housing market in Toronto “and any city remotely within commuting distance is overheating, and perhaps dangerously so.”

May 7, 2014

In Hamilton-Burlington, the number of properties listed in January was 1,139, down 9.7 per cent from January of last year — but sales of all properties were up 17.4 per cent.

“There is less product and just as many people want it,” Piriano said.

That influenced the average home price rising 12.8 per cent over this time last year.

Piriano said it’s problematic to focus on national figures when just one housing market can distort the numbers but said the GTA continues to exert tremendous influence on Hamilton’s market. Fifteen per cent of all home sales in this area are done by Toronto realtors.

How hot is the market?

It’s just one house, but anecdotally it perhaps represents stories that area home buyers and sellers have been telling of their experiences: A central Mountain home on Desoto Drive, near Upper Wellington Street and just north of Stone Church Road, listed Feb.6 for $599,500 and received 18 offers, according to Mississauga-based ReMax realtor Carl Schuy. It sold Monday, a week later, for $740,000. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

John Tory ‘encouraged’ by Kathleen Wynne’s words on housing

Toronto Mayor John Tory was sounding somewhat mollified on Monday after meeting with Premier Kathleen Wynne, just days after announcing she’s rejecting the city’s request to put tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.

Speaking to reporters after the hour-long meeting at Queen’s Park, Wynne hinted at a willingness to boost provincial funding for Toronto’s affordable housing needs.

2007

Tory said he’d pressed the housing issue during the meeting.

“I stressed again, now more than ever, that the province must immediately come to the table to address our city’s social housing crisis,” Tory told a news conference at City Hall on Monday. “I was certainly very firm, again, that we need that help, that some of the most vulnerable people in our city need that help.”

Based on discussions in Ottawa last week, Tory said he is confident the federal government will put “substantial funding” for housing in its upcoming budget. He wants the province to match that money.

In a separate news conference at Queen’s Park, Wynne referred to her “recognition for the need for increased housing support,” but stopped short of promising money.

“We need a three-way partnership on affordable housing — the municipality, the province and the federal government working together as we move into this budget cycle,” she said.

Tory said he was encouraged by Wynne’s message.

“I found that a significant step forward because I’m not sure that I’ve heard those words said before,” Tory said.

Wynne meets Tory on an almost-monthly basis. Monday’s meeting had been scheduled well in advance of last week’s announcement about tolls.

The pair usually hold a photo opportunity inside Wynne’s office as their meeting wraps up, then a joint news conference. This time, the cameras were not allowed inside, the pair shook hands quickly outside Wynne’s door, then Tory departed for City Hall. It created the appearance of a less-chummy-than-normal get-together. (Source: CBC)